One form of conventional sport or work knives comprises a handle and one or more folding blades. The blades in such knives are closed simply by pressing on the back of the blade and rotating the blade to a closed position in the knife handle. Such knives are known for their ability to close when being used if a pressure is inadvertently applied to the back of the blade.
To protect against inadvertent closure, various types of locks were developed for locking a blade in an open position. A common type of locking element known as a liner lock extends longitudinally through the handle and is spring biased to snap into position adjacent to the hinged end (tang) of the blade when the blade is opened. A projecting portion of the locking element or other release mechanism is manipulated to manually move the locking element laterally away from the blade swing path so that the blade can be closed.
Further, various mechanisms have been developed to facilitate opening and/or closing of the blade of a conventional folding knife. Typically, the blade is provided with a thumb stud that can be manipulated by the user to open and close the blade.
Despite the long and continued development of folding knives, it would be desirable to provide a folding knife with a novel blade-locking mechanism and/or novel blade-opening mechanism.